The invention concerns a communication method in a home network, in particular a HAVi-compliant network. It also concerns the network itself, and a device used in the implementation of the method. The invention applies among others to the communication between an internet application running on a network device which may not necessarily have a direct access to the internet, and a device of the network which does have such an access.
FIG. 1 is a diagram of the different devices and software layers required to access Internet services from a personal computer 1. This computer 1 comprises an application including a user interface for interacting with a user, for example a ‘WEB browser’, qualified in FIG. 1 by the more general term ‘WEB application’.
The WEB application lies above an application protocol layer (such as HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) or FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or another type of protocol). The next layers are, according to the example of FIG. 1, the TCP/UDP (Transmission Control Protocol, respectively User Data Protocol) layer, the IP (Internet Protocol) layer and the PPP layer. The TCP/UDP and IP layers combined are referred to as the ‘IP stack’. The connection with an Internet access provider 2 is made through modems and the public switched telephone network. The internet access provider is connected to the internet, which comprises the server 3, the latter including layers globally similar in function to those of computer 1.
A user may own a number of devices such as television receivers and personal computers which have the Internet access functionality provided by the device 1 of FIG. 1. In such a case the hardware and software required for providing the Internet access capability is duplicated in each device.